Imagine you are down with the flu. Yes, not particularly a pretty sight but we have all been there. Naturally, you decide to take the day off from class or work, so you can see a doctor and more importantly rest. But, instead of taking a nap in your own bed that you desperately need, you spend half your day looking for a good GP, booking an appointment and waiting an hour in queue before you can actually see a doctor. And in addition to that, if you were ever a Uni student like me, had to take public transport to get there in the first place. Sounds familiar? Well, you are not alone.
Before we dive deeper into telehealth, let’s take a step back and reflect on our ever growing need to make things more accessible and convenient.
Technology has come a long way and so has our daily interactions with it. Some might argue that we are just getting lazy, but with being competitive and keeping up with demanding career aspects, we are bound to rely on convenience. Time is a valuable commodity and if technology can enable us to find more time back in our daily lives, why not.
Let us have a look at the food delivery scene. From only being able do takeaways, we are now in an era where we can get food delivered to our doorsteps with just a few clicks from our phones. The ease and convenience of ordering customized food from several restaurant options and delivered within minutes is phenomenal. Is it making us lazy? In part, yes, but it also saves from the mundane task of needing to travel to get good food and gives us time to focus on more important tasks. For some it could be helping their kids with homework, for others preparing for test or that big presentation at work. Imagine for a second now, if the same was possible with healthcare?
Well, it very much is a reality and if you aren’t using it already, very soon it might even be your preferred way to connect to your GP if you are living in a city.
Telehealth in Australia:
Globally and within Australia, telehealth or telemedicine has been around for a few years now. But like any developing technology, it needed to overcome a few challenges to unleash its full potential. This transition like every technology related innovation took years of development, feed-back enabled adjustments and evolution to finally be implemented.
So, what should modern day version telehealth venture comprise of? Failing to understand this, is precisely why many telehealth ventures are struggling to get past their initial pilots. Although there are some exceptions, many striving telehealth ventures across the world are unsuccessful primarily due to the 2 factors- barriers in adoption and inadequate data for telehealth.
Without a doubt, telehealth is the future of healthcare in Australia. But with increase in need for aged care, rising chronic diseases and subsequent systemic skills shortage, telehealth faces the question of ‘when’ rather than ‘why’. This demand, combined with the widespread influx of smartphone technology and forecasts of the industry growing into a staggering $266 Bn by 2025, has sprouted the rise of big and small telehealth ventures. Existing healthcare providers are also shifting towards extending their services after hours through integrating technology and web-enabled services.
But why are we so many telehealth ventures struggling to scale?
Unlike your favourite food delivery apps, implementing telehealth does come with more than a few challenges.
Barriers in Adoption:
As exciting as it sounds, adoption of telehealth has been slow. And with good reason.
Telehealth can be defined simply as providing healthcare services utilizing technology and telecommunication infrastructure virtually or remotely as opposed to traditional in person consults. In most cases, this completely eliminates the need to travel. It not only reduces the barrier of distance between the GP and a patient but also improves access by reducing the cost & time associated. But does telehealth provide the same quality of care as a regular GP visit? It is actually just a matter of changing perspectives and gradually building trust in the use technology for healthcare.
In Australia telehealth was initially aimed at improving access to healthcare services for rural communities and the ageing population to maintain a more continuous care. With time, providers realized that telehealth has the potential to drastically change the way care is provided within our metropolitan cities. Although some providers see telehealth as a replacement to traditional GP consults, telehealth can be effectively utilized to reduce strain on GPs as an extension to their usual practice. By being able to connect to patients whenever they want, facilitates a more continuous care and better patient outcomes.
A 2019, Future Health Index supported that 48% of healthcare providers in Australia found telehealth complimented their care delivery and resulted in better patient outcomes.
Telehealth has certainly proved beneficial for the ageing population and patients with restrictions to travel long distances by providing a higher quality of life. But is telehealth only beneficial to the elderly and chronically ill patients? No.
As out cities are rapidly getting populated, burden on GPs and hospitals is increasing simultaneously. Resources are limited but the demand for quality health care is on the rise which results in high volume of appointments and extensive wait times. To that add the unwanted non-emergency GP visits that prevent GPs from providing care to patients that actually need it.
The 2019 Future Health Index also reported that the two major drivers to discourage people from visiting a GP or a healthcare facility were ‘lack of time and difficulty in scheduling an appointment’.
This causes several inefficiencies within the healthcare system by racking up high bills for treatments that could be easily prevented by early diagnosis.
Another issue around the slow adoption of telehealth is a lacking reimbursement model. Although, the Medicare scheme in the past has included reimbursement or coverage for video-consults, it requires the doctor and patient to be at least 15 km away from each other. As a result, a vast majority of people living in the outer suburbs are discouraged from opting for telehealth consults. In urban populations, telehealth consults can help alleviate the burden on GPs by reducing non-urgent appointments and save time for patients by offering access to a GP when they want. Thus, patients living within the city are at a disadvantage, constantly looking for the next available GP or increased wait times. Telehealth startups themselves often lack funding and costs involved with a telehealth consult discourage the adoption of telehealth for consumers. By either funding telehealth ventures or including regular telehealth consults in the Medicare scheme for urban populations can significantly help the uptake of telehealth and consequently reduce strain on GPs.
Telehealth no longer is limited to video-conferencing. Use of smart wearables and remote monitoring devices has enabled doctors to not only actively monitor patient conditions but can now design new methods of treatments based on patient recovery patterns. They are able to share medical data in real time for time sensitive opinions from peers and for post treatment statistics to measure patient outcomes. Although the shift from a fee for service model to a value based has been slow, measuring and comparing patient outcomes is crucial. For the transfer or collection of any big data no less sensitive medical data, privacy has always been a factor of concern. With alleged reports on Google’s Project Nightingale and how it failed to deidentify health records, requires telehealth ventures to have the highest level of data security ensuring privacy of patients.
Another prime yet overlooked factor by some telehealth ventures is lack of stakeholder engagement. Many telehealth ventures with a strong tech background forget that as much as the user interface or technology aspect matters in telehealth, engaging with doctors, patients and providers is equally if not more important. Upon implementing telehealth technology, a huge part of the success also relies on adequate training of staff and patients alike, which involves cost and time.
As much as these factors sound obvious and repetitive, their impact on to the uptake of telehealth is quite significant. Understanding the right ingredients for a successful telehealth startup is one thing but implementing them and raising capital is another. Despite managing to overcome a few initial challenges with telehealth, some ventures fail to scale their business into the next stage. This is precisely what Geoff Gourley had in mind while designing the Amplify program at One10, an accelerator for purpose driven businesses. It is essential to get the basics right. With years of experience in helping businesses grow and scale, Geoff believes that its imperative to reassess your go-to-market strategy at every stage, so you can reinforce what’s working best and adapt on what’s not-all while keeping key values of the business at core.
Every technology or innovation takes time to adjust, evolve and grow before its perfected. Telehealth is no different. We know the benefits of telehealth far outweigh the cons and that it has the potential to drastically improve health outcomes for all. Not only does it improve accessibility for patients it can improve the quality of care GPs can provide. By being able to connect to a GP on demand, gives us more control over our well-being and takes away lot of the factors that usually deter us from seeing a doctor. Telehealth is here, but it might take while till you see best version of it. The next time you wonder if you can connect to a GP with the click of a few buttons, while staying in the comforts of your own home, its most likely already available. Or not too distant into the future.
This is part 2 in a 3 part series on Telehealth.
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Author
Suchit Salian, is a recent graduate in Health & Human Services Management (M.S) with a specialisation in Business Administration. Impact Administration Intern at One10 and Impact Investment. He is a creative thinker, research oriented and passionate about global healthcare issues. Proactively conscious about social issues as well and motivated to work in the impact space.